Sandy Koufax movement is a joke.

[chazzycat]

In a game like this where the cards are generated by an algorithm, there will always be some examples of real players that don't make sense. Like obviously, Niekro was a superior pitcher to Charlie Hough. A quick glance at their career stats makes it quite obvious.

But as long as just ONE season exists where Hough was better at ONE thing than Niekro, there is the possibility those years get selected by the card generation process. It doesn't mean that your favorite player from your childhood is getting screwed over, it's just an automated rating-generation system based on stats. There's nothing personal about it.

[Spieler]

This thread is one of the better ones in a long time. Old school ("good face") vs. analytics. This game, however, is all analytics.

[DonMattingly]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

In a game like this where the cards are generated by an algorithm, there will always be some examples of real players that don't make sense. Like obviously, Niekro was a superior pitcher to Charlie Hough. A quick glance at their career stats makes it quite obvious.

But as long as just ONE season exists where Hough was better at ONE thing than Niekro, there is the possibility those years get selected by the card generation process. It doesn't mean that your favorite player from your childhood is getting screwed over, it's just an automated rating-generation system based on stats. There's nothing personal about it.

It means PEAK cards should be dropped IMO. Baseball is very old and has had many play it for many years, there have been more than enough real seasons of play to choose from.

And it doesn't always pick out those best things from best seasons, the algorithm is as reliable as Mexican tap water. How else would Barry Bonds PEAK have a 16 speed? And believe me he's no childhood fave of mine, but that is getting absolutely screwed over.

[Syd Thrift]

In 2001 he stole 13 bases. Perhaps 16 is low-ish but it's not obscenely low. Speed in the game is literally stolen base rate. That's all.

[chazzycat]

clearly PEAK bonds refers to his later years. He was not a fast player at that time in his career.

From someone who did grow up a Bonds fan, I have zero issues with his big-head-era version having a low speed rating. Now if there was a Pittsburgh Barry card with bad speed rating, that would be a problem.

[DonMattingly]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

In 2001 he stole 13 bases. Perhaps 16 is low-ish but it's not obscenely low. Speed in the game is literally stolen base rate. That's all.

What does that have to do with his PEAK card?

His high was 50, that should be what's used for his PEAK rating.

Young Bonds was very fast, high 80s to low 90s territory easily.

[DonMattingly]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

clearly PEAK bonds refers to his later years. He was not a fast player at that time in his career.

From someone who did grow up a Bonds fan, I have zero issues with his big-head-era version having a low speed rating. Now if there was a Pittsburgh Barry card with bad speed rating, that would be a problem.

But they don't refer to Hough's later years?

For Hough it's OK to dig out an early year from LA, in the bullpen, to calculate his Stuff for a SP card named "TEX PEAK"?



"But as long as just ONE season exists where Hough was better at ONE thing than Niekro, there is the possibility those years get selected by the card generation process."

There is more than one season in which Bonds stole a lot of bases and was very fast.

This is why I say PEAK is as reliable as Mexican tap water. Just make cards based on real seasons from real history.

[chazzycat]

fair enough I suppose...I don't really have a problem with peak cards, but I can see where you're coming from.

Barry didn't really resonate to me as a great example, because he was basically 2 different players in the two phases of his career, so I expect his cards to reflect either one or the other, not be merged together. But if other cards ARE getting benefits like that, then you have a good point.

Maybe one of the devs is secretly related to Charlie Hough

[DonMattingly]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

fair enough I suppose...I don't really have a problem with peak cards, but I can see where you're coming from.

Barry didn't really resonate to me as a great example, because he was basically 2 different players in the two phases of his career, so I expect his cards to reflect either one or the other, not be merged together. But if other cards ARE getting benefits like that, then you have a good point.

Maybe one of the devs is secretly related to Charlie Hough

They love Lee Smith even more

[dkgo]

The defensive and baserunning ratings definitely aren't fully flushed out, seems like they just get tacked on after the algorithm spits out the batting ratings. There are many peak cards with worse fielding than cards of the same player from a specific year which doesn't really make much sense.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by DonMattingly

What does that have to do with his PEAK card?

His high was 50, that should be what's used for his PEAK rating.

Young Bonds was very fast, high 80s to low 90s territory easily.

That’s not, I think, how they’re using PEAK. I believe they model off of a player’s career peak, not some weird amalgamation of the best a player is at everything at different points in their career. If the latter is the case I can’t wait to put that PEAK Babe Ruth card in my rotation! He can throw to PEAK Craig Biggio behind the plate! Wait, maybe I want to use PEAK Dale Murphy there.

[DonMattingly]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

That’s not, I think, how they’re using PEAK. I believe they model off of a player’s career peak, not some weird amalgamation of the best a player is at everything at different points in their career. If the latter is the case I can’t wait to put that PEAK Babe Ruth card in my rotation! He can throw to PEAK Craig Biggio behind the plate! Wait, maybe I want to use PEAK Dale Murphy there.

Then I don't understand many of the PEAK cards, at all. Lee Smith and Charlie Hough would be two prime examples.

It sure looks like for those cards, the high points are taken from their entire career and baked together in to one "whale edition" card. A dev explained Charlie Hough's SP "TEX PEAK" card's 121 stuff by saying it came from a season he had with the Dodgers many years earlier than his Texas phase, and out of the pen.

This was the explanation given for Hough: "I would say the K rate is coming from 1973 when he put up 8.8 K/9, 5th in the league among guys with more than 50 ip."

Why that doesn't happen to other PEAK cards is a mystery.

Just another reason I would like to see PEAK cards dropped from the game.

[Sipimi]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

That’s not, I think, how they’re using PEAK. I believe they model off of a player’s career peak, not some weird amalgamation of the best a player is at everything at different points in their career. If the latter is the case I can’t wait to put that PEAK Babe Ruth card in my rotation! He can throw to PEAK Craig Biggio behind the plate! Wait, maybe I want to use PEAK Dale Murphy there.

From what I understood from the devs' explanation, to create a Peak card they will use the best career year of that player for each of the main ratings (CON, GAP, POW, EYE, AK, STU, MOV, CTRL), hence why some not-so-great players end up looking fabulous.

So to take a random example, Claude Osteen Peak card :

STU from 1969 (5.1 SO/9)
MOV from 1966 (0.2 HR/9)
CTRL from 1967 (1.6 BB/9)

However I don't remember them mentioning anything about "secondary ratings" like SPE, STL, STAM, etc., so I cannot answer for Bonds' speed, but I suspect they used one of the years used for the main ratings.

[Sipimi]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

In 2001 he stole 13 bases. Perhaps 16 is low-ish but it's not obscenely low. Speed in the game is literally stolen base rate. That's all.

I thought Speed was linked to aggressiveness on the basepaths and Stealing was the stolen base rate success ?

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Sipimi

I thought Speed was linked to aggressiveness on the basepaths and Stealing was the stolen base rate success ?

Yes, Speed is how many bases a player will attempt given their opportunities. And TBF, 16 seems low for a guy who had 13 SBA. On the other hand, Bonds got on base around twice as often as a lot of people who steal bases do, and maybe a 16 is about on par for a person who stole at the rate of someone who’d steal 6.5 a year.

Really, my guess on this is that the PT crew looked at him and said “guys, we can’t literally rate him high in everything” and Speed was the most obvious (although arguably least consequential) rating to drop...

[scipper]

I have a slightly different take on PEAK - I remember hearing (although I could be mis-informed) that PEAK was best career year during a 5-year range defined as PEAK.

If that's the case, if someone steals 50 bases in their 1st year, but has their PEAK be years 2-6, and they only steal 1 base a year during years 2-6, then they will use a Steal rating from years 2-6.

[Lukas Berger]

I think the speed part of the algorithm might be a bit buggy for Peak cards in some cases. Something we'll look at for next year for sure.

[Sipimi]

Originally Posted by scipper

I have a slightly different take on PEAK - I remember hearing (although I could be mis-informed) that PEAK was best career year during a 5-year range defined as PEAK.

If that's the case, if someone steals 50 bases in their 1st year, but has their PEAK be years 2-6, and they only steal 1 base a year during years 2-6, then they will use a Steal rating from years 2-6.

I thought that was the case last year but that they changed it for PT 21. Nothing I'm certain of though.

Should there be an explanation somewhere in the online manual ?

[Syd Thrift]

Does the online manual cover PT at all?

[Sipimi]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Does the online manual cover PT at all?

There's a page on it covering general aspects.